The Warriors Are (Likely) Done Chasing Dwight Howard Now That They’ve Signed Andre Iguodala For $48 Million

We can cross one team off of the “possible Dwight Howard destinations” list, as the Golden State Warriors — at one time a surprise dark horse candidate to snag Howard — just committed $48 million over four years to swingman Andre Iguodala.

We’ll excuse NBA news champ Adrian Wojnarowski for his typo on the first one:

Andre Igoudala has reached agreement with Golden State on a four year, $48 million deal with the Warriors, league source tells Y! Sports.

The last couple of days, the Warriors have been trying to offload contracts in order to clear space — ostensibly for Howard — so as not to need a sign-and-trade deal with the Lakers to make it happen. The Warriors did in fact clear space today by sending Richard Jefferson and Andre Biedrins to the Jazz, though it turned out to be for A.I. 2.0, not Howard.

Knee-jerk analysis: Good move by the Warriors. Howard’s a great talent, but having to give up their young pieces to get him (perhaps both Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes) would have been scrapping their carefully constructed rebuilding project a bit too quickly. Iguodala gives them perimeter defense and another athletic finisher. Let’s see what this team can do next year.

UPDATE: Woj now says that Warriors are not out of the running yet:

Warriors still working to make moves, so my suggestion they're out of play with Dwight Howard is premature. They have tentacles everywhere.